Key Laboratory of Molecular Biology on Infectious Diseases, Ministry of Education, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, 400016, China.
Department of Infectious Diseases, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, 400016, China.
Virol Sin. 2024 Aug;39(4):655-666. doi: 10.1016/j.virs.2024.06.003. Epub 2024 Jun 7.
The landscape of hepatitis B virus (HBV) integration in the plasma cell-free DNA (cfDNA) of HBV-infected patients with different stages of liver diseases [chronic hepatitis B (CHB), liver cirrhosis (LC), and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)] remains unclear. In this study, we developed an improved strategy for detecting HBV DNA integration in plasma cfDNA, based on DNA probe capture and next-generation sequencing. Using this optimized strategy, we successfully detected HBV integration events in chimeric artificial DNA samples and HBV-infected HepG2-NTCP cells at day one post infection, with high sensitivity and accuracy. The characteristics of HBV integration events in the HBV-infected HepG2-NTCP cells and plasma cfDNA from HBV-infected individuals (CHB, LC, and HCC) were further investigated. A total of 112 and 333 integration breakpoints were detected in the HepG2-NTCP cells and 22 out of 25 (88%) clinical HBV-infected samples, respectively. In vivo analysis showed that the normalized number of support unique sequences (nnsus) in HCC was significantly higher than in CHB or LC patients (P values < 0.05). All integration breakpoints are randomly distributed on human chromosomes and are enriched in the HBV genome around nt 1800. The majority of integration breakpoints (61.86%) are located in the gene-coding region. Both non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ) and microhomology-mediated end-joining (MMEJ) interactions occurred during HBV integration across the three different stages of liver diseases. Our study provides evidence that HBV DNA integration can be detected in the plasma cfDNA of HBV-infected patients, including those with CHB, LC, or HCC, using this optimized strategy.
乙型肝炎病毒(HBV)在不同肝病阶段(慢性乙型肝炎(CHB)、肝硬化(LC)和肝细胞癌(HCC))的 HBV 感染患者的血浆无细胞 DNA(cfDNA)中的整合景观尚不清楚。在这项研究中,我们开发了一种基于 DNA 探针捕获和下一代测序的改进策略,用于检测 HBV 感染患者 cfDNA 中的 HBV 整合。使用这种优化策略,我们成功地在嵌合人工 DNA 样本和感染后第 1 天的 HBV 感染 HepG2-NTCP 细胞中检测到 HBV 整合事件,具有高灵敏度和准确性。进一步研究了 HBV 感染 HepG2-NTCP 细胞和 HBV 感染个体(CHB、LC 和 HCC)血浆 cfDNA 中的 HBV 整合事件特征。在 HepG2-NTCP 细胞和 22 个 out of 25(88%)临床 HBV 感染样本中分别检测到 112 和 333 个整合断点。体内分析表明,HCC 中的归一化支持独特序列数(nnsus)明显高于 CHB 或 LC 患者(P 值均<0.05)。所有整合断点随机分布在人类染色体上,并在 HBV 基因组中 nt 1800 周围富集。大多数整合断点(61.86%)位于基因编码区。在 HBV 整合过程中,非同源末端连接(NHEJ)和微同源介导末端连接(MMEJ)相互作用都发生在三种不同肝病阶段。我们的研究提供了证据,使用这种优化策略,可以在 HBV 感染患者的血浆 cfDNA 中检测到 HBV DNA 整合,包括 CHB、LC 或 HCC 患者。